The Effects of Anticipated Inflation on Housing Market Equilibrium

An increase in the anticipated rate of inflation causes distortions in the housing market due to a nonindexed tax system. Since nominal rather than real interest payments are tax deductible, an increase in inflation decreases the aftertax cost of capital for homeowners, which in turn increases the demand for housing and increases its real price. This tax gain is shown to be larger for rental housing than for owner-occupied housing. In a competitive market, this implies that although the real price of housing increases with a rise in anticipated inflation, real rental rates fall.     

Government intervention in the housing market: Who wins,who loses?

Many U.S. government policies aim to encourage homeownership. We use a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents to consider the effects of temporary homebuyer tax credits and the asymmetric tax treatment of owner-occupied and rental housing on prices, quantities, allocations, and welfare. The model suggests that homebuyer tax credits temporarily raise house prices and transaction volumes, but have negative effects on welfare. Removing the asymmetric tax treatment of owner-occupied and rental housing can generate welfare gains for a majority of agents across steady states, but welfare impacts are substantially more varied along the transitions between steady states.     

Housing policy and the progressivity of income taxation

Most countries have tax provisions and subsidies to promote homeownership. These provisions generate an asymmetry in the tax treatment of owner- and rental-occupied housing, which affects the incentives to supply tenant-occupied housing. This paper analyzes the quantitative importance of the interaction of these provisions with the progressivity of income taxation in the context of an overlapping generations model with housing and rental markets. The model replicates the key facts observed in the economy, as well as distributional patterns of ownership, house size, and landlord behavior. The model suggests that the progressivity of income taxation can amplify or mitigate the effects of the asymmetries with important implications for housing tenure, housing consumption, portfolio reallocations, and welfare that differ from those reported in the literature.     

Removing Homeownership Bias in Taxation: The Distributional Effects of Including Net Imputed Rent in Taxable Income

The income tax systems of most countries entail a favourable treatment of homeownership, compared to rental‐occupied housing. Such ‘homeownership bias’ and its consequences for a wide range of economic outcomes have long been recognised in the economic literature. Although a removal of the homeownership bias is generally advocated on efficiency grounds, its distributional implications are often neglected, especially in a cross‐country perspective. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by investigating the first‐order effects, in terms of distribution of income and work incentives, of removing the income tax provisions favouring homeownership. We consider six European countries – Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK – that exhibit important variation in terms of income tax treatment of homeowners. Using the multi‐country tax benefit model EUROMOD, we analyse the distributional consequences of including net imputed rent in the taxable income definition that applies in each country, together with the removal of existing special tax treatments of incomes or expenses related to the main residence; thus, we provide a measure of the homeownership bias. We implement three tax policy scenarios. In the first, imputed rent is included in the taxable income of homeowners, while at the same time existing mortgage interest tax relief schemes and taxation of cadastral incomes are abolished. In the two further revenue‐neutral scenarios, the additional tax revenue raised through the taxation of imputed rent is redistributed to taxpayers, through either a tax rate reduction or a tax exemption increase. The results show how including net imputed rent in the tax base might affect inequality in each of the countries considered. Housing taxation appears to be a promising avenue for raising additional revenues, or lightening taxation of labour, with no inequality‐increasing side effects.     

An economic assessment of rent controls: The Ontario experience

Rent controls have existed in Ontario since 1975. Although controls have undergone numerous changes, the basic approach has remained a modified cost-pass-through system with provision for the elimination of financial loss and for a return of new capital expenditures, and, prior to 1986, an exemption for new construction. This paper analyzes the economic consequences of the first twelve years of controls. The major effects have been to reduce rents on pre-1976 units but to increase rents on newly constructed post-1975 units, to reduce new construction, to accelerate deterioration and conversion of the existing rental stock, to generate a severe rental housing shortage, to create an environment for key money, to inefficiently and inequitably redistribute income, and to significantly exacerbate government budgetary deficits by reducing tax revenues and inducing increased government housing expenditures.     

中国一线城市房租形成机理和调控对策

房租是由房屋租赁市场的需求和供给两个方面决定的,而房屋租赁市场的需求和供给都受到房屋交易市场所形成的房价的影响。房价对房屋租赁市场需求的影响主要是由于房屋租赁市场和房屋交易市场的替代效应所导致,房价对房屋租赁市场供给的影响主要由房屋租售比和房价的上涨幅度决定。我国一线城市房价近十年的平均年上涨率为10%左右,这导致了我国一线城市的房屋租售比维持在极低的水平。随着房价的平稳,房租必然大幅上涨,故必须采取措施增加一线城市房屋租赁市场的供给,以供给量的大幅增加稳定房租。     

Public Pensions and Public Rental Housing

It is possible for the Chinese public pension and public rental housing to finance each other in the long term. Employing an overlapping generations (OLG) model, I examine the effects of the individual contribution rate, firm contribution rate, rent rate of public rental housing, and population growth rate on the capital-labor ratio, per capita consumption, per capita acreage of public rental housing, and per capita public rental housing property. According to economic goals, their effects, and their intensities, it does more good than harm to raise the individual contribution rate, reduce the firm contribution rate and rent rate of public rental housing, and restrict population growth rate.     

房产税对宏观经济的影响效应研究

本文扩展Dong et al.(2019)通过企业家对住房地产和实体经济投资进行资产组合决策,把房价、投资、消费和产出等重要经济指标纳入主流新凯恩斯框架,考虑银行能否区分贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业两种情形,分析了房产税引入住房市场前后对宏观经济的影响效应。研究结果表明:开征房产税对房地产开发投资、房价和新住房生产具有明显的抑制作用,对实体经济投资则具有正挤入效应增加和负抵押效应减少的双重效应。从短期看,当银行无法区分企业贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业时,因前期的负抵押效应大于正挤入效应,总实物资本减少,产出下降;当可清晰区分二者时,负抵押效应变为小于正挤入效应,总实物资本增加,产出上升。鉴于推出房产税对宏观经济影响较为复杂,应充分权衡利弊,采取必要辅助措施趋利避害。     

房产税对宏观经济的影响效应研究

本文扩展Dong et al.(2019)通过企业家对住房地产和实体经济投资进行资产组合决策,把房价、投资、消费和产出等重要经济指标纳入主流新凯恩斯框架,考虑银行能否区分贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业两种情形,分析了房产税引入住房市场前后对宏观经济的影响效应。研究结果表明:开征房产税对房地产开发投资、房价和新住房生产具有明显的抑制作用,对实体经济投资则具有正挤入效应增加和负抵押效应减少的双重效应。从短期看,当银行无法区分企业贷款是投入实体经济还是房地产业时,因前期的负抵押效应大于正挤入效应,总实物资本减少,产出下降;当可清晰区分二者时,负抵押效应变为小于正挤入效应,总实物资本增加,产出上升。鉴于推出房产税对宏观经济影响较为复杂,应充分权衡利弊,采取必要辅助措施趋利避害。     

What Drives the Owner‐Occupied and Rental Housing Markets? Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model

Most dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with a housing market do not explicitly include a rental market and assume a tight mapping between house prices and rents over the business cycle. However, rents are much smoother than house prices in the data. We match this feature of the data by adding both an owner‐occupied housing market and a rental market in a standard DSGE model. The intertemporal preference shock accounts for more than half of the variation in house prices and contributes to residential investment fluctuations through the liquidity constraint, and nominal rigidity in rental contracts captures the variation in the price‐rent ratio.     

Fiscal policy with banks and financial frictions

We assess the role of banks to the transmission of optimal and exogenous changes in fiscal policy to the economy. We built-up a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with patient and impatient agents, banks and a government to find that banks and their associated capital-adequacy constraint mitigate the negative spill-over effects to the economy from higher taxes. Specifically, we confirm that labour income tax is the most distortionary fiscal instrument. The optimal choice of a housing tax is the most favorable funding source to a temporary increase in public spending. The combination of housing and labour taxes is the most preferred tax bundle to be optimally chosen under negative output shocks. Moreover, a permanent increase in housing tax is beneficial if it is welfare enhancing and the existence of banks benefits mainly impatient households under permanently higher consumption taxes. Finally, these results remain robust to various robustness checks.     

新兴房屋租赁模式的思考--以一二线城市房地产市场供需为例

当前我国房地产市场出现结构性矛盾,一二城市住房价格上涨过快,而三四城市供大于求,面临较大去库存压力。因此,一些互联网企业、新兴创业投资公司乃至大型房地产企业开始在一二线城市创新住房租赁模式,布局住房租赁市场。5月4日召开的国务院常务会议提出培育和发展住房租赁市场,推进新型城镇化以满足群众住房需求。从国家政策的层面鼓励房屋租赁市场的发展,这是在年初多措并举降低房地产库存的背景下,国务院出台的又一新政。实行购租并举,发展住房租赁市场,是深化住房制度改革的重要内容,有利于加快改善居民尤其是新市民住房条件,推动新型城镇化进程,为青年创新创业提供安居保障。因此,有必要针对这一新兴业态给予一定的金融政策支持。     

A Proposal to Improve the VAT Treatment of Housing in the European Union*

The treatment of housing is one of the most difficult issues under the VATs in the EU. Ideally, rents and rental values should be taxed just like other consumer goods and services, but doing so would present formidable practical and political difficulties. Under a second‐best approach, the value of newly created residential (and other) property is taxed as a proxy for the VAT that should be payable on the flow of housing (building) services. This implies, however, that future increases (and decreases) in the value of the exempt property are left out of the VAT base. To remedy this defect, this paper recommends taxing the increases (refunding the tax related to decreases) realised at the time of sale of the exempt used property. This VAT should replace the current transfer, registration and stamp duties, which are highly distortionary. Beyond that, the VATs in various member states can be improved by limiting the exemption for all used immovable property to housing, by taxing land and by applying the standard rate more widely than is currently the case.     

Japanese Housing Tenure Choice and Welfare Implications after the Revision of the Tenant Protection Law

A new mode of housing tenure in Japan, rental housing with fixed rental terms, was introduced in March 2000 with the revision of the Japanese Tenant Protection Law. This paper examines the implications of this new system by analyzing the determinants of the choices by households among the three types of housing tenure in Japan: owned housing, general rental housing, and rental housing with fixed rental terms, and calculates the estimated compensating variation. Our micro-data is based on the three waves of Japanese household longitudinal data (Keio Household Panel Survey, KHPS) covering all of Japan. The difference between general rental housing and rental housing with fixed rental terms is reflected in the length of the contract term and the level of rent. We carefully eliminate potential sample selection bias introduced to the conditional logit housing tenure choice model through the estimation of the hedonic price regression of each housing tenure alternative. We find that households with a smaller number of family members, those who moved from outside the local housing market, those headed by an unmarried household head, and those with plans to own a house in the near future tend to select rental housing with fixed rental terms. The estimated mean compensating variation by introducing rental housing with fixed rental terms for all households selecting that tenure is 1,205 JPY per month or 1.96% of their monthly rent. Moreover, younger and/or lower income households derived the greatest benefit from the revised law in the form of lower rents.

Housing and the Tax System: How Large Are the Distortions in the Euro Area?*

This paper presents new evidence on the impact of the preferential treatment of owner‐occupied housing in the euro area. We find that tax benefits to homeowners reduce the user cost of housing capital by almost 40 per cent compared with the efficient level under neutral taxation. On average, the tax subsidy translates into an excess consumption of housing services equivalent to 7.8 per cent of the value of owner‐occupied housing, or about 30 per cent of financial asset holdings in household portfolios. The bulk of the subsidy stems from undertaxation of the return to home equity, while the average contribution of the tax rebate for mortgage interest payments is driven down by relatively low loan‐to‐value ratios in the data. However, at the margin, the tax‐induced incentive to use mortgage debt to finance the purchase of the main residence is sizeable.     

PPP融资模式在我国公共租赁房建设中的应用研究

我国公租房建设面临着较大的资金缺口,而由于公租房项目存在资金回报率低、回收周期长的特点,传统的融资方法无法吸引私营资本的进入。本文通过对PPP（Public—Private-Partnerships）融资管理模式的分析,结合公租房项目建设的特点,探讨了PPP融资模式在我国公租房建设项目中的应用。     

中国住房市场波动的影响因素研究——基于租金收益率的方差分解

基于资产定价的视角,本文通过将标准的动态戈登增长模型和传统的住房使用成本模型相结合,建立了一个关于住房市场租金收益率的动态住房使用成本模型。该模型将租金收益率分解为购房的预期资金成本、预期购房相对于租房的风险溢价和预期未来租金增长率三个部分的现值之和。进一步,本文将该模型应用于京沪广深四大城市的季度数据,并使用方差分解方法来考察国内住房市场动态波动的影响因素及其相对重要性。本文结果表明,资金成本变动在四大城市的住房市场波动中为最重要的影响因素,而租金在住房市场波动中虽然存在着一定的影响作用,但并不如资金成本显著。此外,本文还发现,不能直接观测得到的购房相对于租房的风险溢价也是影响国内住房市场的一个不可忽视的重要因素。值得注意的是,近年四大城市居民租房面临的风险相对于购房正日益上升。     

A welfare analysis of the site value taxation model

This study is a short-run version of Brueckner's (long-run) analysis of graded tax systems. Brueckner assumes a long-run market equilibrium that allows for changes in the market value of the land with a zero profit condition. It is our contention that it is more realistic to solve for the short-run conditions with fixed value of land. Under these conditions, we find that if land is relatively inexpensive, the graded tax system leads to superiority in terms ofk (capital improvement per unit of land),Q (initial housing output), andCS (Consumers' Surplus). With steeper inverse demand curves and greater marginal product and initial housing output, the land tax has a more negative impact on profit with graded tax systems.     

A general equilibrium model of housing consumption and investment

This article develops an applied general equilibrium model for analyzing the effects of tax policy on housing consumption and investment. The model incorporates housing tenure choice and consumption decisions in an explicit model of household portfolio choice that recognizes that the demand for owner-occupied housing depends on the after-tax returns from housing capital and other investments. Asset returns are stochastic so that asset holdings are determined by the desired risk-return relationships of households. Owner-occupied housing has a unique position because it has both a consumption role in providing housing services and an investment role. The model is then used to evaluate the effects of tax policy on the size and composition of the housing stock. Potential tax changes include a flat rate income tax and taxation of the imputed rent from owner-occupied housing.     

Economic Instruments to Improve UK Home Energy Efficiency without Negative Social Impacts*

The research examined how to use economic instruments to reduce carbon emissions from the UK housing sector without causing negative impacts on the poorest households. Carbon taxes would worsen the problem of fuel poverty. Compensation mechanisms involving the tax and benefit system were examined, but found not to be entirely effective because of the enormous range in the existing energy efficiency of homes. Exemptions for low‐income households were examined, but found impractical to target. It was concluded that the best way to use economic instruments was through a scheme involving energy audits and surcharges to council tax and stamp duty for homeowners who failed to make cost‐effective energy efficiency improvements within a specified time, with grants and loans to assist low‐income households. After the implementation of such a scheme for 10 years, it would be practical to introduce a targeted carbon tax.